42 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
4187 | 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer] |
3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
4192 | All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer] |
4190 | All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
4191 | What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer] |
21368 | The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer] |
3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
18648 | Freedom to live according to our own conception of the good is the ultimate value [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
20585 | If an experience machine gives you any experience you want, should you hook up for life? [Nozick] |
18643 | A minimal state should protect, but a state forcing us to do more is unjustified [Nozick] |
18642 | Individual rights are so strong that the state and its officials must be very limited in power [Nozick] |
18644 | States can't enforce mutual aid on citizens, or interfere for their own good [Nozick] |
22661 | My Anarchy, State and Utopia neglected our formal social ties and concerns [Nozick on Nozick] |
18641 | If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
20521 | Can I come to own the sea, by mixing my private tomato juice with it? [Nozick] |
20539 | Property is legitimate by initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, or rectification of injustice [Nozick, by Swift] |
18645 | Nozick assumes initial holdings include property rights, but we can challenge that [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
18646 | How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
18647 | If property is only initially acquired by denying the rights of others, Nozick can't get started [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
21737 | Unowned things may be permanently acquired, if it doesn't worsen the position of other people [Nozick] |
21738 | Maybe land was originally collectively owned, rather than unowned? [Cohen,GA on Nozick] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
4189 | Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer] |